I remember a long time ago, that sometimes fiction that was not futurama would be allowed and well recieved on this board. I also remember (vaguely) that some members wanted to see some of my own work. I haven't posted in a long time - and while I'd like to get back into futurama writing, I'd like to present this one-shot, to example where my writing has gone...

Two Hearts

“I will never love you!”

The words rang out loud and clear through the manor, from the third floor on which a young pair stood through to the ground level, a angry rebuking for a persistent suitor. Persistent to the point of insanity, for it was not willingly that Tanya came to be in the house where she stood, nor was it willingly that she remained.

Dressed in a gown of the finest laces and silks, wearing a necklace of the most precious pearls, she was not the least bit grateful to her would be wooer, his gifts meant nothing and her heart would not be won by fancy clothing. She had told him many times, and yet he would not give up. Her patience was wearing thin and her latest rebuttal was her harshest.

It was also the most effective, and the moment the words left her mouth she saw her companion recoil as though she had physically slapped him; he winced and drew back, his hands moving to his face defensively.

“Please do not say that,” he pleaded, a pitiful look in his eyes, so longing and desperate, but not enough to move Tanya’s heart nor to induce her mercy. Instead it drew her utmost disgust and loathing, and she took a step back as he attempted to come near her. She watched with cold eyes as he fell to his knees at her feet, hot tears splashing down his face in little rivulets as he grasped the skirt of her gown, as though by doing so he would be able to keep her close.

Yanking the dress from his hands, Tanya was unmoved, and her acid tongue moved to make a strike of sword like proportions; a sharp blow that would wound him deeply.

“I will never love you,” she repeated harshly, and then to make sure the message got through completely, “You’re a pathetic hideous fiend, you disgust me. I will never love you because indeed sir I hate you!”

The effect was instant.

It was also unexpected, and Tanya instinctively shrank back as her gaoler rose suddenly to his feet, one hand at his face and the other going to his belt. In a move of speed comparative to that of a cobra strike, he unsheathed a previously veiled dagger and plunged it into Tanya’s chest. Not far enough in to kill her, but enough to hurt her, making her chest ache and throb in pain as a small river of blood started its course out of her body.

“Even if you will not love me, I shall have your heart!” he declared venomously, his voice passionate and in the very throes reckless desire. On a face such as his was, the expression was terrifying, and in a instant Tanya had turned and fled.

Through seemingly endless corridors she flew, scared for her life as her deranged would be lover chased after her, his heavy footsteps drowning out the lightness of her own. A sense of claustrophobic terror gripped her, the corridors seeming to close in on her, as though trying to trap her. Her mind dreamed up untold horrors from every shadow-every hint of darkness-and she felt her heart throbbing painfully as a agitated paranoia overwhelmed her senses.

Every door she ran past contained some unknown monster.

Every turning was there to confuse her.

The very foundations of the manor house were conspiring to trick and trip her up, a oddly placed rug, a unexpected twist, in her head everything had been deliberately designed so that as she was chased she became more and more lost and helpless. Her pursuer like a spider, trying to chase her into his web, trying to corner her in a position where she could not escape.

Her hand was over her chest in a attempt to quench the bleeding from the gap in her flesh, the crimson life oozing between her fingers, and in her imagination it was like the sand seeping slowly out of a hourglass, and the longer the discharge continued along with her mad flight, the more her hope began to plummet.

Lightning flared.

In the short burst of radiance it brought Tanya saw a small opening in the wall, nothing more that a black space in among the stonework, darkness as far as the eye could see. With her chaser at her heels she took but a moment to make a decision, one that in any sane and stable state of mind she would have avoided, but in her condition and predicament one she had little choice but to make.

Down the rabbit hole she would go.

Head first she dived through the gap in the wall, falling through oblivion to see what salvation or damnation her descent would bring her.

After what seemed like a age but what was only a passing moment, Tanya was roughly dispersed onto a pile of soiled sheets. She was at first disorientated, either unable or unwilling to stand up. Slowly though-and with a aching head-she lifted herself up from the ground, at first to her hands and knees and then to her feet. She was aware of the prevailing quiet, as close to silent as was possible in a living world, and it frayed her already unraveling nerves. The house of such a man as was her captor had no right to be so still, it by all rational reasons of the mind should be full of groans and creaks, or at least the scuttling of rats in the walls.

But nothing moved.

Nothing stirred or made a noise, the only sounds coming from Tanya herself. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she shivered, it did not seem right nor logical, and she felt that if she stayed in this place of such muted inactivity she would surely go mad. Looking around at her surroundings she took note of how sterile the walls seemed, whitewashed and pristine.

Almost.

In among a sea of white she spotted a single dot of maroon, and with a room as barren and bare as the room she was in was, the stain intrigued her. Moving over towards it slowly-hesitantly-she observed it. Now she was closer she could see it wasn’t as small as it had originally appeared, and she huffed to herself, nonplussed at being deceived even if the deceiver was a inanimate speck on a wall.

She glared at it, as if the dot of colour had done her some great personal grievance by being bigger than she had assumed. Indeed, she managed to work herself into a state about it, and began a tirade about the injustice.

“It is not enough for me to be deceived by the owner of this vile place and trapped is it? It is not enough to be held hostage by the unrequited love of a madman, no it most certainly is not. I have to be stabbed and then chased! Not only that, but then I find the house to be as tricky as it’s owner!” she ranted, and then waited in silence for a moment or two, as if expecting some sort of reply. When she received none she was offended to such a point that she poked the speck, like she was poking the chest of some impudent young man.

To her surprise, as she poked the speck she saw the wall swing open. It took a second for her to overcome her shock, but then she simply ran a hand down her face and decided such unexpected occurrences should be expected. So with that thought in mind she stepped through the opening…and then she screamed as once again she began to fall.

This decline was not so steep, more like a slide that a plummet through nothingness, and yet the suddenness of it drew more screams from the terrified Tanya than when she had jumped through the first hole. On and on she shrieked and wailed, protesting at the indignity of her treatment as though the slide was personally responsible. Had anyone heard her they would have branded her a lunatic and placed her in the local asylum, but as the only person to hear her abject wailing was indeed herself, her apparent bout of psychosis went unnoticed.

Even if she had realized, she would have decided to herself that she was perfectly entitled to a breakdown. After all she had been through a lot; she had been taken from her family by a man who could easily be likened to a unmasked Phantom of the Opera, kept captive in a single room with only the company of said man when he was trying to convince her that love was blind, which in her opinion it would have to be for the vile man to find someone to love him, she had been stabbed and chased through a house that was horridly deceitful…and now she was sliding down some shaft or other with no way of knowing where she was heading.

No way of knowing that was, until she was sent flying out onto the wet grass with a storm raging over her head. She got up quicker than the last time, though still with some delay, and once she was on her feet she hurriedly made her way over towards a set of wrought iron gates, thankful that for once Lady Luck seemed to have taken pity on the poor heiress.

Or so she thought.

The moment she made it through the gates she heard howling and then heard the scratching of a pack of dogs running along a gravel driveway. Giving a sob at the unfairness of it all she started running once again.

The rain poured in a excessive torrent, unrelenting and unmerciful as Tanya ran through the twisting and tight streets. Jet black clouds rolled across the sky, hiding the glinting stars and ghostly moon, the only light that of lighting as it flashed like a knife across the sky. The continuous tattoo of rain hitting the pavement was punctuated by the rumble of thunder, and accompanied by frantic footfalls in the dark. Sharp and shallow breathing, wheezing to steal oxygen from the air. Cold wind slapping at Tanya’s face, leaving it red and sore

The hounds howled.

They bayed for the liquid of life, the crimson river that gushed through Tanya’s fleshy structure with a slightly metallic scent as it escaped, a ragged gash starting to open in her chest. At first purely a trickle, slowly flowing out of the small opening over her heart, but then the blood starting to come more swiftly, and as Tanya tried to run faster the wound became wider.

Closer came the hounds.

So close they were snapping at her heels, and bringing with them such a heat that sweat began to mingle with the blood, body moisture pouring out of every orifice-every pore-until she was more soaked in her own perspiration than by the driving rain. Her gown was clinging to her body, dragging her down with its weight, and she struggled to carry on surging forward. Indeed, she was so focused on trying to make her escape from the hounds, she didn’t noticed the single loose stone in the pavement she was running along.

Until her foot made contact.

Until she stumbled.

Until she fell to the ground hard, crashing down into the cobbles on the path, grazing her hands and arms, banging her head so hard that it was struggled to stay conscious. Dizziness overwhelmed her, and she dazedly tried to get back to her feet -aware the hounds were nearly upon her- but unable to stand on the slick ground she lay on her front helplessly.

Tanya’s screams rang out into the night as she was brutally torn apart by hunting dogs, the only part of her not mauled being her face. As her agonized shrieks stopped her body became completely still, no steady rise and fall of her mangled chest, and the remains of her blood seeping out of too many tears and bites to be counted.

From the shadows stepped the man, his clothing that of a gentleman, his face disfigured and deformed. As he approached the remains of Tanya’s body the dogs fled, and he knelt by her bloody side to softly turn her over, so that he could once more see her face as the rain washed away her life. Tenderly he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers, his eyes closed as he relished in the feeling before pulling away.

“Tanya…my beautiful Tanya…all I wanted was your love,” he murmured, his hand reaching for her chest, into the original wound, and grasping the organ that had once pumped a crimson lake around Tanya’s petite figure. Tugging it out he gave a cry of self-loathing, holding the heart to his bosom, his free hand going to his face with his fingers spread wide to hide his features.

Then his hand came away from his face, going to his belt and to his dagger. Drawing it from its sheath, Daemon looked at the glinting metal as it shone in the moonlight, which was now visible as the storm retreated. Without a word nor a sound, he thrust the cold steel through the disembodied heart and his own.

Nice, it is dark, deepening me further into my alter ego, but still. As she would say "The light slips away into a deep and powerful darkness, my heart cries out as my lost love withers into endless nothingness". I got nothin I feel happy today

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